My Morning Offering

Polonia Pearl here......

In Nomine Patris +, et Filii +, et Spiritus Sancti +
Amen.

O, Holy Ghost, I beg Thee, come and fill me, possess me totally. Remove from me all that is not of Thee, from Thee, Thee Thyself!

Mary, Mother of God, please pray with me and for me!

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Ghost, I love Thee above all and before all, and all in Thee!

I offer myself to Thee: all that I am, all that I have, all that pertains to me; all that I suffer, all that happens to me.

Give to me as it pleases Thee. Take from me as it pleases Thee.

I beg Thee, Lord my God, fulfill within me perfectly Thy most holy will. Make of me what You will. Do with me what You will!

I beg Thee, Lord my God, Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, O Holy Ghost — Holy Trinity, One God … do with me as You will!

I beg Thee, Lord my God, unite me — in my suffering — with Thee, my Jesus, in The Garden, at the Pillar, and on the Cross! Unite my suffering to Thine, I beg Thee!

Lord my God, I hold up to Thee all those I love, my friends, and my enemies. Keep them, I beg Thee, for Thyself — in time, and in eternity before Thy Beatific Vision in Heaven forever. Protect them from the evil one and every evil! I offer myself to Thee for them: give me their suffering and I will gladly bear it for them. Take their suffering from them and give it to me!

Have mercy on me, a sinner. Make me one with Thee in all things.

In a special way I hold up to Thee (names of people who need God’s mercy and healing, His guidance and protection, and those most dear to thee).

Have mercy on me and all poor sinners, especially those of us most in need of Thy mercy.
I offer all to Thee in union with Thy Son Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, and through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In Nomine Patris +, et Filii +, et Spiritus Sancti +
Amen.

Upon waking and before all else — or as soon as it is possible to us — we should drop to our knees before God and make our Morning Offering of ourselves to Almighty God. It is the beginning of our day, and as the Psalmist reminds us, “Nisi aedificaverunt domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui aedificant eum” — “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” 1 The foundation of our day is no one else and nothing else than God, and unless our day is built upon Him, all we do is in vain.

We can be sure that once we have offered ourselves, and the obligations of our day, to God, nothing — absolutely nothing — will touch upon us except that He wills it or permits it for our sanctification. No suffering, no humiliation, no weariness, no weakness, no temptation of this day can touch upon us that is not ordained by Almighty God to our good and the good of others. Most often we will be largely unaware of the reality of the things that transpire in our day that are precious to God … and to which we are purblind. Simple words, gestures — the mere presence of our being among others touches and influences their lives in ways we cannot see or anticipate. Sometimes, from afar, and utterly unknown to us, another will observe what we do — and in that instant a seed is planted in their souls that grows to everlasting life in Christ — because we are faithful to what we have offered and promised God at the beginning of our day.

Saint Francis once famously said, “Preach the Gospel … and if necessary use words.” Our example is the most poignant testimony to the life of Christ within us. And that example perceived by others — and completely unknown to us — is what changes the lives of others, turns the lives of others to Christ and Holy Mother the Church, His Body. All that we purpose to do to for the glory of God pales in significance beside what we do unknown to us and known to others.

What is notable in this Morning Offering is the prayer for union with Christ, not in His glory, but in the ignominy of His suffering through which He redeemed the world. It has been said that many there are who would gladly walk with Christ upon His Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem, when palm branches were strewn in his path and the crowd proclaimed, “Hosanna, Son of David!” — and few there are who will walk with Him on His sorrowful road to Calvary. All gathered around Him in His glory, and all fled Him in His suffering and humiliation.

This prayer asks for total union with Christ — especially in His suffering: in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal, at the Pillar to which He was chained and scourged to the white of His bones, and on the Cross of His Agony, despised by the world, ridiculed, and mortified in what seemed His abandonment. But it was through His suffering that He redeemed the world — and we wish to share intimately in it with Him through the little, insignificant sufferings and humiliations we experience throughout our day — that we may be one with Him in all things, at all times. Not when it will earn us acclaim and esteem, but reproach and malice.

Your suffering is not yours to choose. It will come to you withal, and on terms decidedly not to your liking. You will embrace the Angel of consolation who came to Christ in the Garden, the chains that bind your hands to the scourging of the world, and the Cross itself upon which you have already died in Christ, and now seek to renew that death for Him: the dying to yourself, to your own will, that you may live in and for Christ alone — that you may be with Him in all things and at all times. In your present suffering … and in the glory to be revealed on the day of the culmination of your life in Christ, when this world passes and all within it … and in your astonishment that all that Christ promised is real … far more real than the world that has passed, and would have deceived you that it is life. But Christ only is the Life. You have found that He is the Way and the Truth. You need only to come to that staggering realization, that He alone is the Life. And it is everlasting.

It is a journey to Heaven that begins each day … on your knees.

http://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/

The Polonia Pearl aka eddie